


Erudition

by thorinsaplusparenting (ibreathethroughwords)



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Post-BOFA, bit of angst with a happy ending, dori giving up his happiness, dori was totes a single dad, everyone knew everyone in Ered Luin, fix-it for BOFA, for the hobbit kink meme, mentions of bodily fluids, post-sex cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 08:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibreathethroughwords/pseuds/thorinsaplusparenting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dori worked hard all his life to make sure Ori's life was better, and never learned to find joy for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erudition

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt on The Hobbit Kink Meme: "Post-BOFA, Ori lives with Dwalin, Nori is away all the time being a spymaster for the king/doing his own not-so-legal business, and Dori is all on his own.
> 
> Please give Dori someone to cuddle with!"
> 
> http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/5821.html?thread=12746685#t12746685
> 
> And I would totally link this to the thread, if LJ would behave itself for all of five minutes instead of eating everything.

Dori was pleased that his brothers were happy. Their happiness was all he had lived for these past several decades, sacrificing so much to make sure they were taken care of and content in their rather humble lives. More than once had he faked an illness of the stomach, going without meals so that the younger boys could have enough to eat. In the years where Nori and the added income his thieving fingers brought in were absent from their home, Dori found himself going without food more and more. Ori grew like a weed, and much of his coin went to keeping Ori properly clothed. It seemed like every week Dori was having to let the hem out on his clothes or work longer hours to scrape together the cash to afford new ones for him. The apprenticeship fees for a scribe were not cheap either, not with the cost of ink so high, and it wasn't until they were settled in Ered Luin and Dori took up work managing a tea shop for the elderly proprietor that he was able to afford apprentice Ori to anybody.

Dori's youngest brother had started at a later age than was proper, but he took to his art like a flame to air under the tutelage of one Balin, son of Fundin. Dori was delighted to discover that the kind, older dwarf was a cousin to their young and new King (and therefore respectable and well-connected). He was perfectly polite and well-mannered, and Dori had thought of the handsome dwarf quite often in the hours after Ori had fallen asleep for the night, but nothing had ever come of it before the quest beyond the fantasies he lived out with his body and his own two hands. Once it seemed to become clear that nothing would come of their shared flirting and teasing for whatever reasons Balin had to hold back from him, Dori had withdrawn somewhat, staying to chat a much shorter amount of time when dropping off or picking up his brother. It wouldn't do, he had to remind himself firmly on more than one occasion, to get attached when the other party was not interested and he barely had the time for it anyway.

There had been the option of seeing him when their mutual acquaintances were off drinking together, but Dori wasn't interested in crowded, noisy taverns, and had no one to mind little Ori if he desired to go out. In any case, it wasn't as though he'd have had the energy. Minding an often sick, fussy dwarfing, working long hours, and running the household along often left him feeling exhausted and trapped at the end of the day. It wasn't hard for him to resent Nori for the freedom he had gotten in exchange for leaving them behind. During the times when food was scarce due to a bad winter or a month of low sales at the shop, Dori often found himself wishing he could also shirk his brotherly responsibilities. 

He couldn't. The thought of abandoning Ori like Nori had abandoned him with the babe made his stomach twist with guilt and grief. He had already lost the rest of his family. Dori could not stand to lose his baby brother too.

As Ori grew up and made friends with the rowdy princes and the other too-few children of Ered Luin, Dori found he had more time on his hands, but he did not remember what he was supposed to do for fun. Spending long years getting up extra early to get himself and a dwarf king ready for the day, working late, feeding the lad, and then going straight to bed after a bath had made him lose sight of himself and the things he enjoyed doing. At a loss for anything else, he began to let friends drag him out for a couple of hours at night once Ori was old enough to mind himself, but he was always home before it got late, always there to make sure Ori got to bed on time.

Life was difficult, but once Ori finished his apprenticeship and started on his journeyman, the added income from his manuscripts and commissioned art helped. With Ori able to afford to pay for his own clothing and tools of his trade, Dori was able to replace his own threadbare and thoroughly patched clothes and he reveled in the feeling of the new cloth against his skin.

He had thought then that they were well off enough. The quest had taken his former definition of that and thrown it down a mineshaft. Fairly well certain that all of his courting years were now behind him, Dori gave up the thought of suitors, and watched with tears in his eyes as Ori was married to Dwalin and Nori turned his career of choice into something far more respectable, working as Thorin's spymaster and saving the King's life on more than one occasion. When Nori took up with Bofur, it was a pleasant surprise. If he couldn't have such joy, at least his brothers could. Dori threw himself into running his own modest tea shop to ignore his sudden loneliness at his now-empty home and put thoughts of courting and marriage for himself out of his mind, even when Balin took up flirting heavily with him once again.

Dori had certainly never expected to find himself in the older dwarf's bed scarcely a fortnight after the flirting began again, head resting against Balin's shoulder, his fingers idly wrapping around strands of Balin's snowy white beard. His backside was pleasantly sore in a way it hadn't been since he had tried exploring it with his fingers in his youth. Though his stomach had been tenderly cleaned by Balin to keep them from sticking together, the other's seed still slowly seeped from him, and Dori found he didn't entirely mind the way it felt on the back of his thigh. He shifted, resting his right leg over Balin's and pressing their naked bodies closer together. Balin turned to look at Dori, a small, fond smile, gracing his lips as he moved his head just enough to press a kiss to Dori's forehead. Dori pressed his lips to Balin's shoulder in turn, and settled again, closing his eyes and relaxing in his lover's warm embrace. Being held was a sensation Dori was perfectly convinced he could get used to.

If making the sacrifices he had made were what got him to this point, then he could count them as being doubly worth it, now that he could finally learn for himself what it meant to be happy.


End file.
